Truth, Lies And Fiction
by Dragon Empress
Summary: He should have fought for her, Johnny thinks as he remembers. He should have tried a little harder so that they could have stayed together.' Sometimes, you can't help but think of how things could have been...how they could have been so different...


**A little bit of weirdness for you now, a little bit of "what if...?" **

**After all, in the first film, all of the things that happen are all reliant on one, single thing; Reed Richards having an idea, and Victor Von Doom going on to accept it. Seems like so easily everything could have been so very different...**

- - -

_Some things end, and some things go on forever…_

_Once, a man and a woman fell in love, and that love was enough. Through the madness of change and the confusion of the storm; to the end of the world and it's eventual return. Their children grew old and finished the tale. _

_Or that is a lie. _

_Once, there were two people, and they stayed together for while. Then they parted and the story ends. The end of the world comes to pass without any interruption. _

_(It doesn't really matter if it is true, only that you can believe in it)_

**1.**

You leave messages, countless ones, on her answering machine at home, on the limited space of her cell phone's memory. She never blocks your calls, only ignores them. It becomes hard to decide which action would be worse.

You feel yourself growing older; you feel years pass you by without numbers. In your mind she stays the same.

One day you don't call (but the urge remains).

Twenty years on, she stays the same.

**2.**

He was never anything without her (if we're quite honest with ourselves); he will probably never be anything ever again.

Her wedding announcement reads to him like a back-page obituary, and he realises then that it is hope that has died.

**3.**

Her dream was always to go into space, and now, her daughter's dreams are one and the same. A cardboard spaceship lies abandoned in the garden, the mission pulled last-minute because of the rain. Slowly, like a snowman, it melts into nothing.

(Susan feels that her dreams have done much the same)

**4.**

"You were, in the end, just a man with some brilliant ideas. You found out the hard way that ideas are not enough, and I found out that I loved you immensely, but that was not enough either.

I still miss you, though. I think I always will.

I kept the necklace that you bought me for my birthday that year, when we were both still happy together. I plan to wear it every day, and keep you close to my heart forever."

This is the end. She reads the letter aloud to herself once, twice, a thousand times.

She never sends it; the edges slowly begin to turn yellow; the leaves on the trees begin to slowly turn orange.

"My love forever,

Susan Storm"

**5. **

He should have fought for her, Johnny thinks as he remembers. He should have tried a little harder so that they could have stayed together.

Soon, Marie leaves Johnny too, saying when she does that it is all because of his deplorable _lack of vision_; it is all because of his contentment to stay exactly where he is right now, frozen in time; a thirty-five year-old bartender without any dreams.

In moments like these, Johnny wishes that it all would maybe hurt just a little bit more, but it doesn't. After all, he already has her replacement lined up and waiting. Everything will be just fine.

Johnny is no longer sure that he believes in love (or at least, that it can last).

**6.**

All of these things are true, or all of these things are lies. The middle ground does not exist, and compromises are never really made to last. Eventually, we always end up on our own again; people come in and out of your life like buses and trains.

You never see Susan in person again, but _Ben _does, once or twice, even though he can never quite tell you. For these are accidental things and they never last long, or have any sort of meaning beyond the actual meetings themselves.

One time though, you _think_ that you see her, speeding past you in a yellow cab on a wet, November street. She is there and then she is not, that's all; a flash of gold and a spark of blue.

But then, that's just it, really; in and out, come and go. One day we are here and the next, we are gone. Forever.

That's all.

- - -

**Wow, that really bummed me out...**

**Heh, none the less, I'd also like to know what you lovely people think, so it'd be just brilliant if you'd leave me a review. ****Please? **


End file.
